


replay, replay

by hotmess_ex_press



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Flowers, M/M, Oh yes, Slow Burn, Unresolved Tension, barely angst, minhyuk is an artist, myself by monsta x, of course, title from what is quite possibly the best song in the history of the world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 05:28:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17115299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotmess_ex_press/pseuds/hotmess_ex_press
Summary: The music eases into a lilting hum. Minhyuk closes his eyes."I always wanted a fairytale," he murmurs, and if Hyungwon pulls him a little closer at that, he's too dizzy to notice.





	replay, replay

**Author's Note:**

> please enjoy

"The gods will forget you," Hyungwon likes to say.

It's a bit ominous. Foreboding, of course, but the way Hyungwon lets it drip from his tongue sounds more like a wish than anything.

Minhyuk never knows how to respond, but he soon finds he doesn't have to. Hyungwon lets the silence take over without complaint, observing as it melts into traffic-noise, the smooth jazz Minhyuk likes to pair with pearly pink roses and smudged lines, bells twinkling as a coffee shop door opens and closes. Overwhelming quiet makes Minhyuk itch, so he hums to fill it up. Bounces his knee, taps restless fingers against his mug, his bottles of cheap paint. Hyungwon stares on, his sleepy eyes and odd half-frown. Something tentative but close to gentle. Something _enough_.

"Careful," Hyungwon warns when Minhyuk's lemon-lavender candle won't light. "Careful," he repeats, but the flame sputters to life anyway.

 

 

 

Minhyuk likes the idea of a _muse_.

Some person, some star, some window that frames a different vase of flowers every week. A constant, a source of color. After _she_ left, it all just seemed _blank_ to Minhyuk, empty canvases and drought. Inspiration on the wrong side of accessible, too much coffee to cover up the defeat.

But then Hyungwon slips in, careful, near-silent, neat. He touches Minhyuk like a sliver of moon bleeding hope across an inky sky. And Minhyuk remembers how to _create_.

He tells Hyungwon this.

Hyungwon laughs: _I sure hope not._

 

 

 

It shouldn't feel as comfortable as it does. "You don't paint people," Hyungwon notes.

He looks good in Minhyuk's studio, never a disturbance; the air simply moves through him where it can, and around him, serenely, where it must. He becomes almost sheer, all deep breaths and thoughtful smiles and rinsing out Minhyuk's jar of water when he can't bother to do it himself. Peaceful energy, calming.

"You're right," Minhyuk responds. Two beats and a glance around the room too late.

Hyungwon hums, toys with the thin silver chain that dangles from his left ear. "Why's that?"

_People_ are hard. Not the shape of them, the shadows. Minhyuk can make shapes. It's the subtle things, those almost imperceptible nuances, emotions Minhyuk can't completely understand, let alone capture. The tilt of secretive lips. Are they wistful or sympathetic? How does that translate into paint? Minhyuk just can't wrap his head around it.

The abstract is forgiving. It allows for movement, gives more than it takes. Colors can complete themselves, become something _more_ , be it in a wraparound way. Minhyuk can make something of himself, something of half-formed dreams and wilting flowers alike.

And maybe there just isn't time. Time to find someone, time to fall in pseudo-love.

"I'm not sure," Minhyuk sighs. He should be working. He throws himself across the couch in the corner, the one he's spent uneasy nights on, the one with mismatched pillows and ugly floral cushions. Time, none at all. He can make an exception. "I haven't ever really _wanted_ to paint anyone. I don't think so, anyway."

He's known pretty people, sure. But never anyone he'd felt the need to immortalize. There's something frighteningly intimate about it.

"I get it," Hyungwon says. Minhyuk isn't sure he does, but that's okay. Hyungwon moves to open the window.

Minhyuk yawns, stretches. "It'd have to be someone special," he allows himself a grin. "You could look back and feel your heart break."

There's a scoff, but it's not unkind. It had rained earlier, and the wind is cool and full of the smell of earth. "Poetic of you."

"Isn't it, though?" Minhyuk's jaw aches. "It's a lovely thought."

Does he have time for lovely thoughts? Probably not, and Hyungwon never replies, but Minhyuk can feel his agreement all around.

 

 

 

Minhyuk knows it isn't _unique_ , to like roses.

Not when so many people would call it their _favorite flower_ , one of the only blooms they can imagine when they think _spring_. Not when it has become synonymous with love, and beauty, and _I'm sorry_. But it's one of those things. If you don't like them for their petals, bloodred, candy, sea foam, it's their thorns you fancy. Minhyuk knows he shouldn't call them his _favorite_ , when there is a whole world of violets and hyacinths that need love just the same.

But all the good things are of roses. The tea Minhyuk's grandmother used to make on windy days, the blush of a first. The sweet-smelling steam that twines around the apartment after Hyungwon showers. All the things that send Minhyuk's head spinning when he ponders them too long.

He buys daisies, but not to paint. Just to admire, pristine and cruel and chilly, unnatural on his kitchen table.

 

 

 

"It used to be my passion," Minhyuk says when Hyungwon compliments his voice. He _thinks_ it's a compliment. Sometimes the words push out when he hums, jut out like too-eager crocuses peeking from the snow, pretty snippets of lyrics breaking free from his muted blur of noise. "I wanted to be a singer when I was little."

Hyungwon traces the constellation Virgo on Minhyuk's bedroom rug, the one that shows all the stars. Minhyuk had harbored a fascination with the heavens for a while, done them over in electric blue and violet. He's never thought too much about Virgo, though. "But not anymore?" Hyungwon asks.

"Nah," Minhyuk shrugs. An explanation wobbles on the tip of his tongue, but Hyungwon looks so peaceful like this, heavy eyelids and his knees tucked up to his chest. He exhales it all away.

The air turns suffocating, so Minhyuk looks back to the sketchbook in his lap. Half of a sunset, the half reflected in a still lake. It's no good, and so _tired_. He can't focus, ugly clock-rhythm rising above all. He stands up. To put some music on, a movie, anything. Hyungwon blinks to reality, filled up with constellations. He watches as Minhyuk turns on the radio.

"You could've," he states, shifting to stretch his legs at Minhyuk's curious stare. "Could've sang, I mean. Why didn't you?"

The sketchbook has been tossed to the side, and Minhyuk gestures towards it. "Couldn't. I feel like the arts just war with each other."

"Do you?" Hyungwon twinkles. "I think they all go together."

"I had to pick one. I couldn't do things partway."

"Would you have, though?"

"Maybe," Minhyuk picks his pencil up, passing it between his hands. Hyungwon returns to his stars, the ones just beginning to show through in the darkening sky this time. Silky, silky black, a drop of berry, a drop of wine. The streetlamps haven't turned on quite yet, this waning moon. "Music deserves your all, and so does painting. But you can't split up your _everything_. It just wouldn't work out."

A song Minhyuk likes comes on over the radio, and he's about to turn it up when Hyungwon makes to speak again. His hand falls to the floor.

"But can't you split up your time?"

Minhyuk huffs out a pleased laugh. "We don't have enough of that as it is."

Hyungwon chuckles in return. "I guess you're right."

The song is picking up in pace, and Minhyuk gets to turn it up just in time for its soft crescendo. He sways a bit, and sings along for Hyungwon. Something sad and unwelcome shivers in the almost-everything Minhyuk lends to his voice, the half-sunset abandoned in its neutral state.

 

 

 

_You can't get anywhere with no connections and a good voice_ , Minhyuk's mother told him once. Told him many times, if he counts up every variation. Enough to smother his entire childhood, if he adds in the cool looks and disappointed sighs. _You can't get anywhere with no connections and an eye for color_.

_You can't get anywhere_ , is what she meant. Insipid woman. _You won't get anywhere_.

His angriest reds, slashed across the cheapest watercolor paper his younger self could get his hands on, his murkiest skies, they were all for her.

He'd like to think he's forgiven her, but he still spends the holidays alone, without room for missing anyone.

_I can do anything_ , he always held back, twitchy-silence and wincing away from her pale, hard face. Wishing for someone to confirm what he almost _didn't_ want to believe. _Hope hurts_ , he used to remind himself, and dug his fingernails into his palm with every regretful _no_ he handed out, plentiful at the start when people still took the time to _notice_ , and he took the time to glance back.

When he got the letter, he wanted to burn it, but his mother touched his shoulder and let the word _proud_ roll away from her for the first time. Clunky and awkward sure, but he scooped it up and ran. Cradled it closer than he should have. _Proud_.

And they all mocked the paint stains on his shirts, turned up their noses, treated him the same way they ignored the daffodils down the street, and Minhyuk's crimson bled into blue.

So he dropped the proud, chased the _happy_.

He's still waiting for an _I'm sorry_ , one he knows, deep down, that will never come, not in the way he wants it. He's still waiting for that _I'm sorry_ because he's still waiting for it to _stop hurting_.

He remembers.

"Well, don't," Hyungwon tells him. "Just forget."

Clouds break apart for him.

"Is it ever that easy?"

Hyungwon is enticing, of course, but he's only ever had himself to disappoint. "It should be."

 

 

 

Spring seems to come early.

The blossoms, the trees, the butterflies. Minhyuk wants to spend hours walking through the park. Watch the world unfurl in a wash of subdued green. Everything smooths, sharp angles give way, blurring sweetly. Minhyuk goes to buy bread and can smell the lilacs at every corner.

There's that aftertaste of _city_ , sweat and grime and the sharp bite of exhaustion, but he's never minded it. It lingers still in the cool air, and Minhyuk can breathe real deep again.

Hyungwon still wraps that faintly-blue scarf around his neck before he goes out.

"Because it's still cold," he explains. His fingers curl around the collar of his coat. He looks awfully small. Breakable.

Minhyuk feels his lips twitch upwards. "A soft sort of cold, though."

Hyungwon smiles back. "Maybe."

 

 

 

_Viscaria_.

Minhyuk had never heard of them until the flower-stall girl with a chip in her front tooth points them out, and he's not certain they even grown in this weather, in this climate, with these sudden, merciful showers. Mostly pink, a few swirls of purple. Dark centers and petals dipping inward. They're impractical. Dainty, perhaps.

"What do they mean?" Minhyuk inquires, looking at her.

She beams especially dreamy at that, looking down at the wispy leaves. "Will you dance with me?"

Vertigo slams around the crown of his head, and his fingers flex for an anchor.

"I'll take some."

 

 

 

Things go slow.

Maybe it's warming up. What will Hyungwon hide behind when summer comes around?

Minhyuk stands in the middle of the broad square, flowers clutched to his chest, the sunlight still trying to break through. Faces whir past, and he lets himself be jostled. Likes the way no one stares, likes the way they let him _be_ , with his head angled towards the viscaria in his hands and his shoelaces undone.

He feels suspended, inches from _nothing_ , sluggish with the rest of eternity. It's crowded, it's busy enough; why are things so clean? The dandelions are back, people should be celebrating.

Or maybe it's all in his head. Why can he feel the demanding breath of something _big_ , balancing on the back of his neck?

That dizziness still sends tremors through Minhyuk. He sets down the flowers and roots around in his pockets. There's a fountain in the center of the square, out of place, bubbling year round. Minhyuk's never liked it, though he's always wanted to. He pulls a penny from the lining of his jacket, flicks it into the water. The shaking dies down. He should head home, he should sleep.

He spins, skips a little. Sure, it's nowhere near a waltz, but he would hate being so rude as to deny such a simple request.

_Dance with me?_ the little blooms peer up at him, so much left to achieve. What can he do? _Of course._

 

 

 

"Come up to the roof with me," Minhyuk demands. Hyungwon shrugs, so Minhyuk leads him to the fire escape. It's an _alright_ if he's ever seen one, and Hyungwon grips his hand too tight on the way up.

Shadows leech their way across the sky, and the artificial lights--orange, lemon, cherry; neons leaving a sticky-saccharine residue in his mouth--slice upwards to drown out the stars. Minhyuk can see people walking below them; he leans way over, the iron railing digging into his stomach. They look like little moving dolls. Smudges of leather and clouds of perfume.

"When did this start?" Hyungwon stands a pace back. "Coming to the roof, I mean."

Minhyuk presses his palms flat against the railing. Tries to balance his weight on them. He tilts: back, forth, back, _forth_. Hyungwon pulls him away. "The day I cared enough to look."

Hyungwon doesn't blink, but he hums. He sits, cross-legged, his back to the lights. Minhyuk follows, facing the other way. He fiddles with the hem of his shirt once the sounds of night aren't enough.

Once the sun sets completely ( _new moon new moon_ ) last wrath of winter sinks heavy into the smoke-stained air. Hyungwon shivers, and Minhyuk should move closer, offer his jacket, tell him to _go back inside, it's okay_. But he can't, all he can bring himself to do is touch Hyungwon's shoulder. Hyungwon doesn't smile, but it's close, and _alright_. Alright, he's alright. He gazes up, up at the _everything_. Minhyuk watches him.

His hand is shaky, almost translucent, and graceful. The veins in his wrist are black-blue and prominent. Hyungwon maps out empires with the tip of his finger.

"You like the stars," Minhyuk points out, and it's _stupid_ , but Hyungwon doesn't act like he thinks so.

"And you like the streetlamps."

Minhyuk tries to laugh, but it's too rough to travel far. "I feel like they're the one thing we can all have."

"Do you?" Hyungwon blinks, his eyelids drooping lower. He's that bone-deep sort of tired that seems to soak into everything. Minhyuk nods. "I like the stars because I can pretend they're all mine."

"Symbolic, isn't it?" the chuckle comes through this time, and Minhyuk hops to his feet. "Let's go in. It's chilly."

 

 

 

Minhyuk tries to paint a butterfly. _Monarch on Milkweed_ , is his first thought, though he'd probably call it _Distance_ if he ever finished it. Halfway through the first wing, he scrapes the mess off and drapes the whole canvas in foggy black. He spends a while staring at it. _Absence_ is a horrible thing; it makes for empty art. The melancholy guitar of his new playlist isn't loud enough. He dials up the volume and draws the curtains closed.

He ends up with a sketch of bony hands cupping glowing gold drops, and a wasted afternoon.

 

 

 

"I like it," Hyungwon informs him, picking at the ragged edge where Minhyuk tore the drawing out of his journal. He has a tiny scar on his left ring finger, two raised slashes just underneath the second knuckle. Barely visible, but Minhyuk's eyes flick right to it. "You could use it for something else."

Minhyuk groans. "I don't think so. The lines are too fine."

Hyungwon shrugs, setting the sketch back onto the table. "Fair enough."

The windows are all open, and Minhyuk breathes in until it feels like the whole universe can fit into his lungs. Sparkling galaxies inside of him; the thought fascinates and nauseates Minhyuk in equal measure. He imagines bleeding out midnight. Would it last forever? Welling up, overflowing, welling up, an unforgiving loop.

"I thought more about what you said," Minhyuk shifts, pillowing his arms underneath his head. "About the stars, and the lights."

"Did you?" amusement plays across Hyungwon's expression. "What did you find?"

"Well," Minhyuk lets Hyungwon's grin spread to him. "I figured out why I like them so much. At least part of it. They make me feel insignificant, you know?"

"Is that good?"

"Sometimes." He pauses. "It's an odd thing. I figure this is all finite. If I don't amount to anything, that's okay. If I'm miserable and destroy myself, I guess that's fine too. I can try again. I can just _be_ , and maybe the universe will forgive me. Or overlook me. Whichever. I'll do better next time, or maybe I won't. And it's okay."

There's something sorrowful about the lines of Hyungwon's shoulders. "That's a lot to gather from the city lights."

Minhyuk wonders if Hyungwon can see right through him. He tries to squirm away from the sudden defeat in Hyungwon's posture. Minhyuk can feel him struggle to keep the gloom at bay. He looks almost ethereal when his eyes go glassy like that, lost and calculating all at once.

"Anyway," Minhyuk wants the glee back on Hyungwon's face. "It's all bad luck, tempting fate. Do you think about that a lot?"

Hyungwon pulls at the strings of his hoodie. "I really try not to."

There's an almost invisible imperfection in the drawing. Faded twin marks, pure and thin, just underneath the second knuckle of the left ring finger. Even Minhyuk couldn't tell if it was an accident. Hyungwon doesn't even acknowledge it.

 

 

 

_Sometimes the clouds look so close_ , Minhyuk muses. Springtime-scent muddles up his mind. He feels like dandelion seeds. _I could swing at them and they could break_.

He raises one arm above him, swipes at the feathery white. The only thing he succeeds in disrupting are the shiny green flies fluttering around his head.

Hyungwon makes a disgruntled sound in the back of his throat, and tosses his book into the grass. He's greedy when it comes to words, and so careful. Hoards them like there are only so many he can use before the dictionary runs dry. Minhyuk is surprised.

"Bad ending?" he asks, and receives a lazy shrug.

"An ending," Hyungwon corrects.

Minhyuk sighs, rolling onto his stomach. "I can't finish a book," he feels rather than sees Hyungwon raising his eyebrows. "I like happy endings."

"No such thing," Hyungwon settles next to him. "I don't believe in happy endings."

Almost not surprised, Minhyuk blinks. "You must be miserable."

Eyelids fluttering closed, lilies of the valley in his incomplete smile. "Endings are the impossible parts, haven't you heard?"

Minhyuk falters for words, but Hyungwon doesn't see it. Instead he exhales, wishes. It would be a waste of breath, anyhow. Hyungwon looks skeletal without his layers of winter, at the full mercy of the sun. A meek breeze ruffles through the too-long grass. Wildflowers are reckless under their sheen of fairytale.

"I think I'd be okay with a tragedy," Hyungwon's voice dips low, and Minhyuk strains to capture all its weight. "All I'd like is a happy beginning. And contentedness, somewhere in between."

 

 

 

"Isn't it funny? You talk all fire, but you don't seem angry."

Hyungwon stills, but he never lifts his eyes from the petunias Minhyuk bought from the flower-stall girl.

"Is angry the only thing a fire can be?"

 

 

 

"Walk with me awhile?" Minhyuk asks.

Hyungwon still wraps himself up in his cloud-blue scarf, and smiles secretly when Minhyuk points out that it's getting warmer. Minhyuk shrugs and looks away, _shush_ ing at the sunshine swarming his lungs as he laces his boots.

It's a lazy sort of day, and muddy. Hyungwon drags his feet in the remnants of yesterday's rain, murky puddles still dawdling beneath the slopes of pavement, and Minhyuk slows.

"I got work," Minhyuk says once the city-sounds fade out, birdsong swooping in. Dew glistens from the unfurling of bee-swollen tulips. Chiffon, honey, ruby. The news bubbles from him. "It's for a show. Three pieces."

"That's good," Hyungwon tilts his head towards him. "Are you excited?"

Minhyuk exhales. Shoves his hands into his pockets. He looks up. "Yeah. It's a lot better than the jobs I've been doing now. I'm a bit nervous."

Hyungwon nudges him. His eyes are soft, and smudged in something comforting. "Don't be."

There's a coin in Minhyuk's pocket. Cool and gritty when he rubs his thumb over it, and he guesses it's been there awhile. Empty places are odd things; aches that can't be plugged up with old coins or scribbled memories or jelly jars filled with dull pencils. Minhyuk pulls out the quarter and tosses it onto the broad, uneven sidewalk. He likes yellow tulips the best.

"Would you mind," Minhyuk clears his throat, "sitting with me while I paint?"

Hyungwon laughs, but Minhyuk knows he won't say no, not with the wind unraveling the edges of his mirth like that. Hyungwon twists the collar of his shirt like he knows something. He's bright, but he's hushed. "You and your inspiration."

 

 

 

"You're all light blue," Minhyuk thinks out loud. Hyungwon hums and sways. His sweater is black and too big, but it's forgiving. Something tangible to take from the blur of late afternoon and dust rising from the carpet, gold suspended in whatever unearthly light the glass windows let overflow. If Minhyuk had to sum him up into one overcautious word, he doesn't know what he'd pick. Perhaps _light blue_ is too big of a thing to pretend, maybe Hyungwon wouldn't like being such a smothering idea. Minhyuk thinks _relief_ , then, for the leftover dew drops Hyungwon reminds him of. But Hyungwon might just snap under all that weight.

"Am I?" Hyungwon finally speaks up. His lips barely lift upwards.

"No," Minhyuk decides. "You're all roses."

 

 

 

Hyungwon is...idle. Most days, it's as if he's waiting for something, something glorious yet unnamed, and he doesn't mind if he waits forever. As if he doesn't mind being kept stagnant, being caught up in moon-glow, so long as he can watch the people pass by.

"Surely you wanted something, sometime?"

"I don't think so," Hyungwon doesn't like talking _back then_. "I can just be content."

Hyungwon has a watch. It's old-fashioned, clunky. Gold, but Minhyuk couldn't tell you if it was real. It's pretty either way, with neat flourishes on the numbers and flowers engraved into the back. Roses, maybe, and Minhyuk swears their petals spell out _fate_ in looping script. Hyungwon treats it like a curse, loud _ticks_ dwindling into something inevitable, but Minhyuk holds it like it might shatter if he looks at it wrong. _It's broken_ , Hyungwon reminds him when he gets too reverent. Keeps time like a fishing net keeps the ocean in, and that's such a dangerous thought to fall into.

"It's not terribly easy, being content," Minhyuk feels like he should be noticing something bigger than the swoop of Hyungwon's hair over his forehead.

"Maybe you're just thinking about it too hard," and maybe that's all Minhyuk was meant to notice today. "Maybe you're searching for something you already have."

_Maybe_ is such an effortless thing to be. It blends in perfectly with the staticy sort of silence that fills up places Minhyuk didn't know were vacant.

If Minhyuk is the sunset--violent colors splashing all across the horizon, blood and fire and sangria crowding each other out only to be overturned by shadow--then Hyungwon could be his clouds. Good and sweet enough, and there's that solace, appearing again. Cold, sometimes, but always there, to soak up the red when it's all too overwhelming. There's grace in his tears.

"And if I have it, but still can't be content?" Minhyuk regrets opening up even halfway when Hyungwon looks at him like he knows everything Minhyuk is still trying to pick out from the swirling chaos of his own _everyday_. He scrambles to collect the fragments he misplaces each time Hyungwon talks like he can't help it.

"I'm not sure," Hyungwon deliberates. He's not _warm_ the way that tints the world sickly honey, but he's not jagged, either. Sea glass, or something like it. "I suppose you'd just have to figure it out as you go."

Minhyuk tilts his head back, letting himself sag against the couch. "That sounds hard."

Hyungwon laughs. "But you never know. Things appear from nowhere all the time."

"But still," Minhyuk hides a yawn behind his hand and tucks his feet beneath him. Hyungwon gets up to close the curtains. His watch ticks, steady on. "I'd like to think I've earned it."

 

 

 

Minhyuk takes the muddled black canvas and sharpens it from the inside out.

He cuts it through with red. Thick slashes, grazing shallow here and infinity there, and Minhyuk can taste their blood and pomegranates. He slips in a curve, a crescent of silver, shining slick and improper elegant. It's icy, and ever so lonely, in that way that suggests it doesn't quite know it is. So Minhyuk splashes it in white, tiny flecks and splatters that read like lightning. Furious. _Breathing_ , he thinks, and blurs away the spots he doesn't like with his thumb. Moving forward. He _hurts_.

"It's like deconstructed night," Minhyuk decides. Hyungwon narrows his eyes.

"But where would the red come from?"

Minhyuk shrugs. Hyungwon's hand hovers above the canvas, but he lets it fall back to his side.

"It reminds me of someone I used to know."

Minhyuk raises his eyebrows. "Yeah?"

Hyungwon nods reluctantly, like he isn't sure. "I did. He was...greedy."

"Greedy," Minhyuk repeats, and smooths his fingers over the sleek wood of his least favorite brush.

Later, Minhyuk lets a haze of lilac wash over the gaping yawns of garnet. It soaks and settles into the once-murky black, but he can feel it all the same. Faint, fragile purple, like a delicate bruise, to take the sting away.

 

 

 

Colors are odd things.

Reflections. Minhyuk wonders what rainbows feel like; a purer sort of nothingness, maybe, transcendental, almost sliding beneath his fingertips. They're hope. Orange drawing smiles from shells easy as a single leaf on the surface of a lake. Mauve teasing out tenderness, a hidden scar of tracing desperation. And it all rounds out. Minhyuk feels himself tumble headfirst into a glossy swath of plum. The lost can feel themselves lighten, the timid can give a little room for the peonies, and the fortunate can sleep the whole night through.

But hope... _hope_ is indefinable, untraceable, the leniency of summer mist, the richness, the suffocation of a sweeping tsunami. The high of a _yes_ and the crashing, crushing despondency of a _never mind_. The glory that carves out skylines in the first place. Lethal, addictive, _delicious_ ; but when was there ever a difference?

"It's no use denying things," Hyungwon points out. "If it's going to happen, it's going to happen."

Minhyuk wrinkles his nose. "You've never believed in fate, though."

_Fate_ , that is something Minhyuk wants to believe in, the same way he wants to believe in muses. It's childish, he supposes, but the sort of childish that tickles in the back of your mind and warms your cheeks and brews love potions to feed the flowers. The sort of childish that swoons all ambrosia and wraps up romance real nice. The sort of childish that good grows healthy from.

"Fate," Hyungwon gestures vaguely. "Is too flowery a word. I like _time_ better."

_Time_ , time is a bloody loss all around. Minhyuk tells him that. Fate is kinder.

"I guess that's true," Hyungwon tucks his knees under his chin. "But believing in something doesn't always mean you can't be scared of it. Of what it brings."

Minhyuk acknowledges that, the demons that danced around his childhood when the lights went out. "Do you think everything has a set date, then? Is everything planned out, or do we get to decide those things ourselves?"

Ebony: all things return to night. Colors creep back into place and let themselves be eroded into _almosts_. Life unravels like yarn tangled around slender fingers, and the sunflowers rot and crumble on your dining room table.

"I don't know," Hyungwon grins, lethargic. "Either way, it's a lot of responsibility."

After all, everything is dying. Tantalizingly slowly, all at once. Everything that needs to exist is just beyond reach. The sun, the peach trees and basil plants, the _you and me_ s. Everything is dying, and Minhyuk finds that frighteningly lovely.

Hyungwon glows in the mess that streetlamps leave behind. He's...beautiful, if Minhyuk dares it.

Daffodil, poppy eats Minhyuk from within.

 

 

 

The sun wins the war against the _still_ , and the ducks are coming back. Everything soaks in the warmth, hiding away the thought of a relapse into winter. Worry is left to gnaw at the dead things. Hyungwon leaves his scarf behind, and sunlight gathers, negligent towards the grass, on the arches of his collarbones. Minhyuk slows for the roses by the bookstore, and ducks in after Hyungwon when he rustles in.

The bell's sound is crisp and clear in the murky quiet of the shop. Minhyuk winces at his muddy boots scuffing along the worn floors. Paint and dust are worked into the patterns of the dark wood. The wallpaper is peeling and old-fashioned, rose-beige swirls and gold stripes. Minhyuk tries to walk lighter. He thinks lilies. Hyungwon moves his fingers in the air before the books, never quite touching.

"What are you looking for?" Minhyuk asks, and he just can't match the _hush_. He curses himself, but Hyungwon is enough calm for the both of them.

"Remember when you said you liked the thought of being insignificant?" Hyungwon pulls a book from the shelf and opens it to the middle. Minhyuk tucks his hands into his pockets, trying not to look at one place for too long. "And that's why you liked lots of lights?"

"Yeah." His voice is weak. He clears his throat. "Yes."

Hyungwon flips a page, then two. He doesn't look up, but his teeth tug at his bottom lip. "I don't think you're nearly as unimportant as you say you are."

Minhyuk is surprised. "What?" his brow furrows. "What do you mean?"

Hyungwon shrugs, book under his arm as he searches through his pockets. "Exactly what I say."

 

 

 

Minhyuk's ash-grey candle is burnt down to the bone.

It's one of his favorites. An enigma, in the way he still isn't quite sure how ash-grey translates into scent. It's rich, heady, an intricate sort of smell, one that weaves through the apartment and lingers until morning. He's reminded of his cousin's velvety cigarette smoke and the way it wouldn't wash out of his bedsheets. The candle leaves a smoother film, though, more gracious, less rough. Less velvet, more silk. He wants to paint curls of ocean, swooping night, swells of moonsong and cricket dance.

He would, but the blackened wick is crumbling in the heat.

He should, but the wax is dwindling, spiraling closer and closer to the bottom of its glass jar.

The flame ebbs to its lowest point, so Minhyuk looks away. It seems to burn out faster the longer he looks at it, and it leaves a bright white pinprick suspended in the darkened room when he blinks. Minhyuk remembers when the wax flowed boundless and the lick of fire threatened to overflow from its cautious container. A war all on its own, and now the sparks strain to keep from sputtering out, clinging like desperate stars to the dying wick.

Hyungwon walks into the room, his satin feet, satin steps, and the flame jumps, one last time.

 

 

 

Minhyuk abandons the half-done piece, all bloody glory and lilac mercy, in favor of a blank canvas, woven eggshell, scratchy when he moves his fingertips over it. _Incomplete_ sizzles in the back of his mind, but he'd rather be guilty towards an angry thing than a wistful one, and his candle's skeleton hurts worse, unwashed and empty.

He exhales at the dip of brush into water, at the gloom of grainy steel-blue that accompanies it. He holds his breath the rest of the way.

Hyungwon curls up on the couch and tries to hide his yawns. Minhyuk glances over, and the secondhand chrysanthemums cluttering the cushions don't seem quite as hideous with Hyungwon's light hair curving above their wretched thorns.

The colors are too cold and too cold and _too cold_ , but Minhyuk can't add red, he can't add orange, he doesn't _want_ their rage, he only wants to take the frost off. He smudges pearl in and hopes its vanilla-taste won't wash out the rest. Nickel is reluctant, but teases from his brush just right. Ashes, ashes; inspiration leaves smoke in its wake.

The sun is swallowed by the tattered forms of buildings and the light-streaked streets, and Minhyuk feels useless.

Hyungwon is cherry-blossom condolences when Minhyuk drops his brush to his cart and his head to his hands. "It's not done," he reminds, all sheer like this, nighttime-faded. "It'll grow up, same as us."

"Shaky foundation," Minhyuk stretches his fingers. "Haven't you heard?"

Hyungwon laughs, real quiet for the wilting peonies in the old milk bottles, and Minhyuk feels something hopeful and regretful bloom inside of him.

Minhyuk traces the rough lips of the canvas and knows he's no proper artist. "It's not _right_. It's doesn't look right. It's not supposed to be so... _rigid_."

"That's okay," Hyungwon speaks sorbet and innocence. "Grey is just a difficult color to turn soft again."

"Maybe," Minhyuk smiles.

He presses his palms flat to the canvas, imagines unity. As if he could share his own remorse, break it even like still-warm bread to soak up the _wrong_.

He flicks the light off and throws the window open. The peony petals, a once-delightful pink, now giving way to ugly brown and beige, tumble like snowflakes in slow motion, catching with each whisper of wind, to the shadowy sidewalk, where they lay like burnt lace. The window shuts with a snap.

 

 

 

Hyungwon is on the roof, bare feet tucked up under him. He's almost smiling, a roundabout way to content. Minhyuk grins for both of them.

"Habits bleed," he says, and Hyungwon doesn't open his eyes.

"Stupidity sticks."

Minhyuk lets his laughter whip away in the placid wind, tinkling like fairy bells to the street, where it shatters, dust below breath. It's enough, but Minhyuk taps his fingers, his favorite line from the overplayed ballad he hears on the radio repeating, _clack_ ing against the iron railing. Its significance diluting more for each time he hums along. A snarl of beauty.

Like dawn breaking over glazed mountains, warming the in-betweens, Hyungwon smiles for true. It's relief. Minhyuk's fingers stutter over their rhythm.

"What are you thinking of?" he asks, a hush to save the stars.

Hyungwon picks at the threads poking from the sleeve of his sweater and always answers in questions. "Do you know a lot about mythology? Gods, the afterlife? Things like that."

"Not really," Minhyuk grips the railing. "Why?"

Hyungwon takes a deep breath, shaking the hair from his eyes. He looks up. "They used to say...that gods would be sent down to Earth, to act as kings, for punishment."

"Really?"

"Yeah," Hyungwon's eyes are alight with something Minhyuk feels like he should be understanding. "But I don't think that would be punishment at all."

Minhyuk takes the word _king_ , all shiny and forbidden, and rolls it over his tongue. It's naïve, he supposes, or maybe just wishful, but all he can taste is decadence, wine-spice and the chill of diamonds. "Because of the riches?"

"It wouldn't hurt. But there's something else," Hyungwon lifts his hand, capturing whatever lost tendrils of moon in the hollow of his palm. "Being a king...what is there, to dread leaving behind?"

 

 

 

When Minhyuk goes out, shoelaces dragging behind him and cramped handwriting clogging his mind-- _milk, soap, caramels, milk, soap, caramels_ \--heavy clouds cluster to meet him. A lone peony petal tumbles across the concrete and sticks to the bottom of his shoe, but he lets it be. It will unstick when it needs to.

Peonies are...not his favorite. Too many meanings, and none Minhyuk likes. But they're lovely. Bright, and their smell could make him forget why they needed meaning in the first place.

The rain starts slow, and Minhyuk pulls his hood up. The soap's wrapping bleeds shea butter, and the milk bottles _clink_ with each step.

The peony petal is still smushed to the sole of his sneaker, ragged and dirty, when he gets home.

( _Happy life, happy love_ , taffy-color crows. _Wealth, honor_.

_Timid_ , the other side warns, because pink comes in dark shades, too. _Shameful_.)

Shame, shame, shame--his peony's gritty remains deserve grief, at the very least. Minhyuk makes rose tea, and whatever bare traces of irony that can be found are not lost on him. He adds too much sugar and watches the rain pick up pace from his bedroom window. A void to swallow sin.

 

 

 

"When is the last time you danced?" Hyungwon wonders aloud when Minhyuk fiddles with the volume dial a little too long. "I mean, really danced?"

Minhyuk can't remember, but he'd hate to admit that. "This is a slow song," he points out instead.

Hyungwon shrugs, then stands. He holds his hands out. "Doesn't matter." Minhyuk wants to ask where Hyungwon's ice comes from, his cold hands, his composed smile. Surely not his heart. "Dance with me anyway."

Minhyuk swallows, but he rises on shaky legs. Hyungwon's shoulders are bony. _You're too thin_ , Minhyuk shouldn't say out loud, but he thinks it. He touches Hyungwon like one wrong move could send him dissolving into starlight. Lilies can't begin to compare to Hyungwon's quick feet, his grace; his arms loop around Minhyuk's waist just so.

He is still roses and mint. Minhyuk could drown.

The music eases into a lilting hum. Minhyuk closes his eyes. "I always wanted a fairytale," he murmurs, and if Hyungwon pulls him a little closer at that, he's too dizzy to notice.

 

 

 

"You look tired," Minhyuk mentions, and Hyungwon has shadows dancing below his eyes. More prominent the wider Minhyuk opens the curtains, dipping a shade darker for each ray of sunlight that dares to illuminate him.

"I _am_ tired," he responds, something like laughter in his tone, and Minhyuk twitches, caught even between reaching out and cursing the sun. They cancel out, and silence moves in much like a rain-swollen pond. Swaying in, swaying out. Serene.

A spider taps out a rapid pattern against the floor, darting behind the drapes. Minhyuk watches it, and wonders what it feels like, acting air and silk.

The curtains are sun-bleached, a once-royal blue. Blue is an easy color. In, out. They're a teasing hue now, light-splotched and lopsided. Minhyuk likes them better like this; soothing is an alright word. Familiar is even better. Hyungwon stretches out like willow branches in the wind, too elegant, too effortless.

Hyungwon lets his eyelids flutter closed. Minhyuk holds his breath, can't decide if moving to keep the sun at bay is worth the noise. He does neither, but closes his eyes as well, and his darkness is warm, honeyed with secrets.

 

 

 

In his dreams, Minhyuk teeters above something hungry and perpetual. His bare feet mold into something comforting. Unyielding, soft, contradictions all rolled into one gentle coolness. He lets shadow swallow him whole, and focuses on that instead of the contemplative tug in the center of his chest. Ink blots across his vision pristinely. Shades of night arch infinite, starry calligraphy to drape above the _redbluepurple_ -tinted nothing.

Sleep is sugar cookies and chamomile, dandelion milk and nutmeg for the fairies. And Hyungwon is tired.

Minhyuk only wants to watch the blue phlox take over spring with him.

 

 

 

Minhyuk is tying off a bag of coffee when another love song plays at the grocery store, crackling from the cheap speakers. Another love song, but it's so _pretty_ , and Minhyuk files away its bittersweet poetry for later.

(It plays on the radio while he's making dinner, so he sings along over the hum of the stove and the clanking of dishes. Delicate tune, perfect voice slipping above a flawless melody. Minhyuk feels an imperfection, staining its sweet. He doesn't notice Hyungwon hovering in the doorway until the last note teases out, low and yearning.

"Are you crying?" Minhyuk asks over the flush in his cheeks, almost guilty.

"Of course not," Hyungwon breathes, wiping his eyes with his sleeve, as if Minhyuk could miss the strange tilt to his lips, the mist he tries to hold in. As if Minhyuk wasn't blinking away longing of his own.)

 

 

 

This far into the city, the wind pierces a bit harder for each building it manages to surpass. Hyungwon shivers, and he is cut out of glass with the red from the traffic lights soaking into him, ruby to taint his pale. Minhyuk unwinds his own scarf, and layers it over Hyungwon's. Its cheerful yellow lowly, pitiful even, against the light blue. Hyungwon grins, though, clutches both to him, like he could never see a difference in the first place. Minhyuk smiles back, but it's painful, and he rubs his hands together, all absence and false warmth.

(Hyungwon is cold, cold, Minhyuk reminds himself. No use in touch.)

Chill slices through his teeth, upwards to freeze his gums. The light changes, a slick emerald to replace the red. They hurry across the street, steps softening against the asphalt, damp with forgotten rain. Hyungwon coughs into his gloved hand.

Minhyuk always wanted to live on a street lined in cherry trees. Silk snow every spring, mornings filled with that faint, faint pink. Here, there is only the bins outside of the florist, spilling over frost-blue.

"Hydrangeas," he murmurs, only loud enough for Hyungwon to hear. Hyungwon looks their way, a private smile forming in spite of the wilted petals. "They mean heartlessness."

Something in Hyungwon dims even as his lips part for the bitter night air. "They're so pretty, though."

"Aren't all the heartless things?"

Hyungwon looks at him with that almost-fondness, that almost-fear. His mouth curving around the swell of a shocked laugh. He looks young, his eyes wide, scarves pulled up over his chin. Fragile. He doesn't talk selfish. "Yes. The heartless, pretty things."

Something aches deliciously in Minhyuk's chest. He looks up, bites hard into the gracious indulgence of a full moon. Silver fills him up slowly and wholly; the bristling streets are jealous and too quiet.

"I can't wait to get home," Hyungwon says, tentative, as if he isn't sure if the silence is one to be broken. Minhyuk is only grateful. He tries to shake off the shuddery trace of a shattered promise.

"Why's that?"

Hyungwon tilts his head up. "You can't see the stars here."

The moon is still glorious; Minhyuk supposes she has room, to be lonely. He agrees. The skies are incomplete, however magnificent the moon's wealth paints them. He is blinded by beauty, but, then again, the moon is only second-best.

 

 

 

Minhyuk drizzles his canvases over in stars, to make up for the lack brought about by the city's brilliance. Hyungwon's eyes crinkle up when he sees them, but he still says nothing. Minhyuk blows the hair from his face, picks flecks of paint from his skin. Stalling, though, for what, he isn't sure.

Hyungwon is tall, but his shoulders round forward for Minhyuk. " _Thank you_."

 

 

 

She was ice, and, looking back, all but the relief Minhyuk wanted her to be.

_You and I, you and I_ , she promised, a single _me_ hidden in her feathery _us_. A flammable sort of affection. Lovely, true, but loveless, a heart like dusty dragonfly wings trapped in glass. She loved sunrises, and Minhyuk would tailor his days to meet hers.

_Give, give, give_ , the sunrise demands. Burnt edges and not enough apologies for the sparrows, lithe things left to search through the night-broken blades of grass. Fog to smother the sunshine on the days when the apples fall brown and bruised.

_One day_ , sunrises swear, but years pass and nothing changes but numbers.

Lilac lace and honey. Never colors for us, only colors for the pleasure of the greedy sun. Intangible crown for the frayed horizon. All the impeccable things stretching to bury the stars, all the selfish, saccharine things.

Sunrise flits in uninvited, and leaves when it pleases. The stars, the good, forgiving, glowing stars, they are always there, when darkness claims the sky. They are always there, a pulse of froth and shimmer.

Mornings are spiced milk and shades of white, and Minhyuk drifts right past them.

_Take_ , the stars offer, shy.

_Take_ , the stars request, and never ask for a thing.

 

 

 

Hyungwon's fingers tangle in the gardenia blooms Minhyuk brought home. An innocent white, a devastating perfume. Minhyuk has never liked their smell the way he should; too solid, too honest. Secrets are meant for keeping.

Restless. The drapes dance in whatever breeze the open windows allow. Hyungwon draws in a deep breath, measures its release the way a stream trickles downhill. His sweater is a grey blur, and his frown tastes like smoke in the back of Minhyuk's throat. Minhyuk grips his mug, taps an impatient finger against its rim. Regrets spending so much time making his bed and watching steam fold in on itself and listening to soul, when he should have been creating, should have been wondering, should have been brushing against Hyungwon's shoulder and _asking_.

"I have to go back soon," Hyungwon whispers, his fairytale voice breaking, stirring up memories of a vague warning Minhyuk shouldn't have brushed off. "You know that?"

Minhyuk observes the dark circles that could be bruises, Hyungwon's wavering periwinkle. He doesn't doubt it, but he flinches, wants to doubt it in the way-deep of his heart. "Where?"

Hyungwon hesitates, and doesn't quite believe himself. "Home."

_I thought, I thought, I thought_ , Minhyuk wants to scream, a million different endings. He chooses none of them, instead watches Hyungwon pull one gardenia petal away from its flower, pass it between his hands before letting it wobble, glide to the table. Ivory, cream. Pure either way. His arms thud against the table, muffled by the buzzing in Minhyuk's ears. He studies scratches in the rough wood, as if he had something to be ashamed of.

"I don't want you to go," Minhyuk betrays. His voice quivers.

Hyungwon finally meets his gaze, and his words fall flat, even if the leniency his eyes reveal does not. "We never get everything we want, do we?"

Something uneasy wavers in the powder blue of Hyungwon's aura. Minhyuk lets it go. He wraps his hands around the cool stalks of the gardenias, and imagines cupping Hyungwon's hands instead.

"I want to paint you," Minhyuk declares, foreign but sure. It frightens him.

Hyungwon sighs, this close to laughter, this close to tears. He is dulled by grief, and Minhyuk wants nothing more than to erase the morning.

When is the last time Minhyuk felt really, truly opaque?

"I can do that," Hyungwon finally answers, butterflies on the tip of his tongue. He strains to smile.

Minhyuk follows suit.

 

 

 

"Why now?" Minhyuk blurts.

"I don't know," Hyungwon's hand hovers above his. Trembles, then falls back to his side. Minhyuk pretends not to notice. "That's just the way it goes."

 

 

 

_Are you happy_ , Minhyuk's melon-hibiscus candle nudges. Pretty peach-pink wax, new tin wrapped in pretty peach-pink paper. _Could you be happy?_

He's not sure, and positive that even thinking long and hard about it would result in a _maybe_. A useless one, at that, a weak shield for a tenderer sort of fear and denial, denial. A _maybe_ that pinches when he dwells on it for too long.

Take away the chains, the honorifics of _today_ and _tomorrow_ , let them unravel in the wind like scraps of indigo linen, and Minhyuk doesn't know where he would end up. He reaches for an answer, blind and unsteady.

_Happy, happy, happy_. Meaning is lost for each time he rolls the word over in his mind, the friction of fact against hope. Poison all over again. A gust of wind rustles the yellowed papers scattered across his kitchen table.

The flame of his candle dances, but only stretches upward. Minhyuk shifts, and his elbow knocks a box of matches to the floor. They roll away from him on the uneven floor. He sighs, slumps a little further. Rests his head against his arms; his eyelids feel heavy, perhaps with the weight of pondering _happy_. He runs his thumb over his newest sketch, an eerily familiar silhouette against overwhelming moonlight. It's bare, simple, reflective of the silence Minhyuk drew it to. Sweat smudges its dainty pencil marks. He flicks that to the floor, as well.

_Are you happy?_ The barely-used candle is much too decadent for Minhyuk's taste, and he cannot give it answers, either.

He blows it out.

 

 

 

Hyungwon drifts through the apartment some days. Minhyuk halfway wants to trail after him, his other half balanced precariously on the tip of his tongue, questions he wouldn't dare, couldn't dare ask. Sometimes, Hyungwon's fingertips will linger over meaningless things, old chess pieces, discarded sketches. Never for long. As if all he wants is to make sure that he can, that he is just as real as they are.

Restless fingers on bad days. Graceful fingers, graceful fingers always.

Hyungwon is like an hourglass.

He's so. A delicate countdown. Time means an end, but a glimmer caught in glass and gold can help you forget that. And Hyungwon makes Minhyuk want to _forget_ , forget everything but the sparkling flicker of amber in his eyes.

_What can I do_ , words Minhyuk locks up tight, drags away before they can do any harm. _What are you looking for?_

Because Hyungwon always smiles at the end of the day, standing at a distance that is probably closer than what is good for either of them, but much, much farther than what Minhyuk would like.

Hyungwon is an hourglass, and his silk sands are wasting away.

And yet, he is beauty, beauty, _beauty_. Minhyuk could almost forget.

 

 

 

"You want to paint me, no?" Hyungwon reminds, affection warming him from within like ambrosia lounging, careless, in a lazy crown of September sun. Exquisite. "What do you want me to do?"

_Look at me like that_ , Minhyuk begs away, reeling in his mind. _Look at me like that, all soft and scared and in love--_

"Not a thing," Minhyuk responds, and his grin feels like a chore.

 

 

 

Hyungwon kisses him on the roof, with the traffic lights in his eyes and vertigo crowding out the air in Minhyuk's lungs. Night raging all around them, solace in Hyungwon's milky-white skin, the stars gasping along, an _ache, ache, ache..._

He is overwhelming. Minhyuk tastes his own tears before he feels his eyes start to sting; Hyungwon pulls away quickly.

Hyungwon kisses him and it's regretful and long-delayed: _sorry_.

 

 

 

Hyungwon sits still and gazes at Minhyuk, and Minhyuk can sense him struggling to keep the indifference in his eyes. Minhyuk drags his chair to the center of the room, where the light will hit Hyungwon the best. A smile whittles away at the corners of his lips.

It won't be so different from usual. Hyungwon waltzing the line between _here_ and _there_ , Minhyuk stealing glances.

(If they were wrong then, he doesn't want to think about _now_.)

He smooths hair from Hyungwon's face, holding his breath. Hyungwon sighs, and Minhyuk thinks about the tide, her passive _in_ s and _out_ s. Lets himself touch just a moment too long, starlight coming away on the tips of his fingers.

"I think," Hyungwon bites the inside of his cheek, staring hard at the etched design in his chair. Minhyuk stands in front of his cart, motionless and listening. He can wait, would _like_ to wait, he realizes, tubes of blue and grey and gold _off_ , not quite right, lacking the quality Minhyuk can't name. January's full moons, a current raging beneath ice.

"What is it?" Minhyuk's voice forces its way out raspy, not enough of what he wanted. Too earnest, too low. _Raw_.

Minhyuk is spared from the full radiance of Hyungwon's beam when he angles it towards the floor, eyes still down. Minhyuk isn't sure it's better this way. "You'll make something beautiful."

Minhyuk swallows away any useless replies. They would only be clutter, a burnt orange mess he would have to sweep away later.

His hand trembles around his brush.

_Weight_ , a halo like Hyungwon's has weight. Minhyuk blinks and blinks, but, still, all he can see is _ethereal_.

Minhyuk can't remember the last time he drew lines like this. It's frightening, just like he predicted, but for all the wrong reasons. Hyungwon averts his eyes, tucks up his feet underneath him, pulls his cloud-blue sweater over his knuckles as if anything he might do could ease the hurt.

_You could look back and feel your heart break_ , Minhyuk recalls saying, but he's looking up and all he can feel is the cracks spiderwebbing into something unrecognizable.

He leans away, pale, pale blue staining his hands, scratching up his forearms. He toys with a paint-bottle cap, distracting himself from the tug of Hyungwon's collarbone.

"I'm no good without you," Minhyuk whispers, and prays Hyungwon didn't hear.

No such luck. Hyungwon tilts his head, furrows his brow like he can see everything Minhyuk can't. Minhyuk tips, crashes headlong into desire.

"Sure you are," Hyungwon counters. "You just need to realize it."

 

 

 

"Was it a mistake?" Minhyuk questions, afraid of the answer. Hyungwon looks at him, just as scared, just as surprised. An awful combination, mulberry clouded over and bottled up behind his eyes. Minhyuk looks back.

Hyungwon ducks his head. "I shouldn't have done it."

_So, yes_ , Minhyuk wants to say. Scream it out, tear at his hair, laugh his way to insanity. Hyungwon swallows like he can hear it all. _A mistake_.

"I shouldn't do it again," Minhyuk isn't sure whether or not Hyungwon's voice trails into imagination, where it falls away, if it does. "But, gods, I'd like to."

Minhyuk observes the curve of Hyungwon's neck. Wants to kiss them both into oblivion.

"Me too," he whispers, but Hyungwon doesn't move.

 

 

 

"That used to be my favorite constellation," Hyungwon tells him, pointing. Minhyuk looks up. "Virgo."

From above, Minhyuk can name each star. From below, they are brilliant, and staggering. An army, night's dazzling crown of glory. He tries to pick out the points of Virgo, but watching Hyungwon trace shapes on the cement is easier. Palpable: passive swirls here, clumsy flowers there, rolls of ocean in between. Light fingers like that and he could be an artist, Minhyuk muses.

"What changed?" Minhyuk asks, too late. Hyungwon leans back.

"I'm not sure," Hyungwon says, in a way that Minhyuk can't quite bring himself to believe. He has that air about him, the one that speaks _stories_ , if he were any less latent. Anything less selfless. Minhyuk would listen, would _care_ , but he isn't sure Hyungwon knows that. Isn't sure how to tell him, or if he should even try in the first place. Perhaps he was just never meant to know.

"I thought it had a nice story," Hyungwon says, cautious after too many measures of stiff silence. "Poetic, a warning all disguised, you know?"

Minhyuk doesn't think he does, but Hyungwon doesn't need that. Not now, when his words are bubbling up, boiling over. "Yeah."

"Well," a nostalgic grin twists about Hyungwon's lips, and he gazes at Minhyuk as if he meant to build his house of straw the whole time. "I realized I could write my own. And maybe, maybe mine could be even better."

 

 

 

The flower-stall girl grins in a way that could easily be pitying, if not for the pink flush blooming across her cheeks. Minhyuk smiles back, grip tightening around the messy-scrawled sheet of notebook paper in his hands. Wondering how one expression can overflow with flowers.

He thought a long time, but Hyungwon won't be coming back.

Morning glories came to his mind first, but, no, that would only be guilt manifested. _Mallow_ , perhaps, but Minhyuk would like to think he's still whole. Sweetpea, violet are too fragile, pink carnations too bold.

She ties the blossoms together with a snippet of lace, like she knows exactly why Minhyuk is shuffling his feet, avoiding her eye, stitching a plea into his simple request when a _thank you_ would do. Like she can see the shy, starry gleam of Hyungwon's riddles reflected perfectly, unbroken in Minhyuk's eyes.

"Thank you," he whispers, feeling like a broken record: repeat, repeat, repeat. The eye of a needle. In, out, in, out. Crumbling about the edges all the while.

_Primroses_ , he decided last night. An in-between at last. If he's lucky, Hyungwon will think back to him, once he's gone. If they're _enough_.

 

 

 

Things move fast.

Sickening.

There's no one, nothing to tie moments to matter. Minhyuk turns. He spins and he spins and he spins. Chokes back all the things he can't yet let go of, and screams out the rest to the empty sun. Trying to gain footing in the way of things, but he's _slipping_.

Flowers are memories, and memories are flowers, and Minhyuk can feel white roses burst from his chest, reaching to kiss his fingertips, cool and gentle.

He doesn't _need_ them, he _can't_ need them, but he aches for them and the hollow, dewy spaces between their petals. _Please_ , he wants to gamble, such a powerful, featherlight thing. He brings the primroses up, brushing his lips against them. It's the closest thing.

(It's the only thing.)

"I want," he murmurs against silky petals. So many ways to wrap it up; Minhyuk feels selfishness crawl like sin up his throat. There's rough against his hands, lace a volatile thing. He wants tonight's moonlight to wrap around the whole world, and nothing else. This, he can crave.

(The thought of Hyungwon's grateful smile tells a different story. This, he pretends he can regret.)

 

 

 

Hyungwon is out when Minhyuk lets the door hang open behind him. He had bought a camera the other day, some lopsided, rushed explanation. _This is better_ , Minhyuk reasons. He'd hate to give them to Hyungwon himself.

Minhyuk hums as he fills a jar with water, but his throat closes in on any sound, something to do with the sting in his eyes. He angrily scrubs it away, feeling his shoulders loosen with each heavy exhale. Tighten more for every moment he stands still. Almost evening out into something bearable when he moves to pull the lace from the bundle of primroses, shoving it into his pocket. He studies the stretches of sun that grasp for the edges of his table, the slashes of shadow, and places the jar in the middle, where the thin petals will be illuminated the best.

They're _good_ , all sincere and milky, and Minhyuk doesn't want to think too hard about that. He looks over the table and wonders if he should scribble something down, an ugly _For you, For Hyungwon_ , or a wobbly, greedy _Think of me--_

The _click_ of a shutter drags Minhyuk from the calligraphy he shouldn't be forgetting, and he whirls to face a grinning Hyungwon. His camera is clumsily held in front of his guilty-pleasure smile, but his cheeks round out, eyes crinkling up, and Minhyuk's soul tugs him a thousand directions at once, all of them towards Hyungwon.

He lets himself look.

"Welcome home," Minhyuk finally forces out, sloppy in the contentedness they came so close to, watching as Hyungwon sets the camera down and makes his way to the makeshift vase, asking questions with his eyes.

"Are these for me?" Hyungwon inquires, awful and foreign and formal, and Minhyuk knows it's the one thing he doesn't need to be confirmed. He nods. Hyungwon's eyes meet his, and the doomed sheets of ice Hyungwon never could have held onto seem to melt into butter, stealing away the sting of frostbite. Too rich, just right. "Thank you."

"Primroses," Minhyuk states haltingly. Hyungwon touches them fondly, carefully, pinching one stem between his fingers and smiling, bittersweet, down at its docile blossom.

"What do they mean?"

_Undying love. Eternal love._

Half of him wants to cry out, let fall an irretrievable and beautiful thing to tremble and unfold for all the world to see. The other half wanting to whisper it close and _too close_ to Hyungwon's rose-scented skin, make sure he _remembers_ it, even if it turns out to be a lie.

Minhyuk pushes down the words, instead, laughs. Maybe he can save them for later, be it a _later_ that seems icy and inaccessible from this side of yesterday. "Nothing I want you to know."

Hyungwon's eyes glisten, and Minhyuk thinks he can hear them anyway. See their meaning, perhaps, lost somewhere in the maze of a smile Minhyuk can't quite sort out.

"Alright," Hyungwon whispers, head dipping towards the love Minhyuk can't admit. "Alright."

 

 

 

"Tell me it wasn't a mistake," Minhyuk dares to demand, almost reaching for the pale hand, still and _waiting_ , near-eerie on the darkened concrete between them. He wants to hear something he can keep for _forever_ ; something he can hold, fluttering and whole and perfect, just close enough to keep him warm at night. " _Please_."

Hyungwon shifts closer, and he's skin draped over bones, but he's so _soft_ , enough mercy to make up for the unapologetic rough of the roof. His hands fold over Minhyuk's, and he's near enough for his breath to catch below Minhyuk's ear, sweeping through him, down his spine like mist coming off the sea. His nose brushes against Minhyuk's jawline, lips impossibly close but an eternity away. Minhyuk digs his fingernails into his palm, screws his eyes shut but angles towards Hyungwon's comfort. Pretending that _this_ , whatever it is, can last longer than the pearly ardor of tonight's moon.

Perhaps the smallest piece of a shattered _something_ will have to ward off the nightmares. Hyungwon drops a gossamer kiss to his shoulder and sighs. "I'm sorry."

 

 

 

_Of course he's sorry_ , Minhyuk thinks. _That's the only thing he_ can _be_.

And today, he hates himself for saying it aloud when he writes it down, but maybe someday he'll regret burning the paper away on the flame of his candle that smells like cloves and sunset. Someday, but not today, never today.

(And maybe he'll swear off fire for an hour, a moon, a year. Let his candles burn out, lose his matches, leave all his poetry for winter and sleep the days away.)

_Don't think I don't mean it_ , neatly printed in dark blue ink in the center of the last unmarred sheet of paper in Minhyuk's sketchbook. _A waste_ , Minhyuk conveys in the grit of his teeth, but he picks up his pencil and lets flowers explode around the longing strokes of sapphire anyway. (Not _anyway_. Of course.)

The world will go down in flames.

 

 

 

Minhyuk's nails catch in the seams of the canvas, and leave behind their hideous markings and hideous sounds when he sinks to his knees. Empty all the way down, but there's storms of cerulean to greet him at the bottom.

"You're leaving," he cries, and, finally, a tear breaks free, a silvery strand of all the things he'd love nothing more than to push far, far, away. Inward or outward, he doesn't care, because, either way, they'll come back to tug him gently apart, piece by punishing piece. A gradual, glorious undoing.

"You're leaving," he cries, not quite sure who is listening. His words fall like iridescent threads to the floor in front of the portrait, his _only_ portrait, where they weave together to greet desperate footsteps, neither absorbing nor comforting.

"You're leaving," he cries. _And what will I do without you?_ he doesn't voice out, though it smothers any other emotion except:

"You're leaving," Minhyuk breathes, "and I was just starting to fall in love."

_and_ \--What will I do without you?

_and_ \--What will I do without you?

_and_ \--What will I do without you?

The door creaks open and closed, the light from the hall disappearing almost as soon as it appears. Hyungwon's footsteps seem to dissolve themselves, and Minhyuk _loves_ him.

Hyungwon doesn't talk; Minhyuk doesn't listen. For what? Another _sorry_?

"You're not fair," Minhyuk mutters, and feels Hyungwon chuckle above everything, gathering teardrops from the ends of Minhyuk's eyelashes on a greedy fingertip. He shifts back on his heels when Minhyuk stands abruptly, smiling too kind and too faint and not bright enough.

Minhyuk gets a palette and a paintbrush, and if he adds a drop of periwinkle into the white, he'll never remember.

In the painting, Hyungwon's eyes are downcast, hair falling out of place and lips curving up deliciously, almost unnoticeably. His collarbones betray too much and his cheekbones swell perfectly underneath a sheen of moonlight, and he's _beautiful_. Minhyuk takes his brush and paints him a crown of primroses, dainty and pretty and _so plain_ in comparison, yet everlasting in the only way Hyungwon isn't.

_\--and maybe, it was always meant to be like this._

 

 

 

It's not raining the evening Hyungwon tucks the ends of his scarf behind him and packs his toothbrush into its careful container, but the clouds boil over as if the sun couldn't bear to watch.

Minhyuk doesn't run his hands over the collar of Hyungwon's jacket; he doesn't wrap a strand of Hyungwon's hair around his finger, just once, just to see what it feels like. He carries Hyungwon's bag to the door and grips its straps too tightly. The wind blows wisps of Hyungwon's hair into his glistening eyes, and Minhyuk pretends he's not jealous, aching all over, clinging onto the last tendrils of rose that are already escaping him. Hyungwon smiles, tender as anything.

_Kiss me, one last time_ , Minhyuk wants to plead, but maybe that will make it all hurt just a little more.

"I'll miss you," he chooses instead, tongue cold and remorseful around the sentiment.

"I'll remember you," Hyungwon replies, just as soft, maybe softer, because he's always been like that, spidery and sweet and too good to be true. "I swear I will."

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are loved and cherished forever! If you're confused about anything in this fic, so am I, so just ask!
> 
> (Also, I know next to nothing about mythology. I took some liberties.)


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